Ellopos Blog

Meaning, Passion, Interest - this is the Revolutionary Road where a couple is invited to live, the proper human road, according to Richard Yates, author of the novel, and Sam Mendes, director of the movie.

The plot is not about a couple struggling to come to terms with their personal problems while trying to raise their two children. The plot is about a woman who denies everything when everything is infected with conventionality, compromise, indifference - and each of us personally is asked by this woman: “Are you living a real life, an interesting meaningful life?”

The movie is built upon and repeats the Greek command “know yourself and become what you are”, thus presenting the escape from the american dream as the inevitable reaction of a person unable to share an unexamined, uninteresting and conventional life.

Can a person who sacrifices the meaning of a life, who doesn’t even search about it, choosing a dull life but convenient from some aspects - can such a person have a real love relationship with another person? The answer of April Wheeler (Kate Winslet) is No, since she realises that she can not live anymore with her husband (Leonardo di Caprio). It is not only (or even not at all) what we do to the others; the main problem is what we do to ourselves, who we become, when we exchange truth and interest with a sense of safety. Then there is nothing left in us to be loved.

Related (automatic selection):

• The Greek word Philotimo
• Mercy (St Mark the Ascetic)
• Greek immigrants: are they still Greeks?
• Writing and Memory
• Why is Greek such a great language?
• What have we done to Christianity..
• Three Sayings by the Athonite Elder Paisios
• Thinking about Obama, faith and abortion
• The ‘rational’ danger
• The ‘Olympic’ ‘Philosophy’ of China